Date 4: Interlude

Laurel sat on the bed in Team Too Old For This Shit’s room, staring at the full-length mirror.

On the floor, Nagasaki squirmed and waved a tendril at her own reflection like she was arguing with it. The distressed child needed comforting, and Laurel had been nominated—possibly because she looked the least likely to bite anyone.

“Naga,” Laurel said, rubbing her temples, “haven’t you ever seen a mirror before?”

“Like the things in cars to see behind you?” Nagasaki asked in a Texan drawl that made Laurel smile despite herself.

“Yes,” Laurel said. “Like that. You know you can see yourself in them, right?”

Nagasaki coiled indignantly. “Those are small! This is a window! There’s a Crawler right there, Aunt Laurie!”

“Not your aunt,” Laurel muttered automatically. Then, gentler: “And where would another Crawler come from? How would they get here without anyone noticing?”

“I dunno,” Nagasaki admitted. Her voice dropped into uncertainty. “I’ve got, like… what do you call a brother’s kid? I think they’re called gremlins?”

“Nephews,” Laurel said. “And if there was a gremlin in the wall, we’d hear it.”

To prove her point, Laurel stood and walked toward the mirror, trying to project calm. Nagasaki made a small panicked sound behind her, like Laurel was approaching the edge of a cliff.

“See?” Laurel said. “That’s my reflection.”

She lifted her hand toward the mirror.

Her fingertips didn’t meet glass.

They met warm fingers.

Laurel jerked back so hard she almost fell, her scream catching in her throat on the way out. Her pulse punched at her ears. For one frozen second she couldn’t process what she was seeing, because her brain insisted the world didn’t do that.

“LAURIE!” Nagasaki shrieked.

Nagasaki reared up to her full height, defensive and furious.

Unfortunately, Nagasaki’s full height was roughly that of an angry ferret, so it lacked intimidation value. The hiss, however—sharp and rattling—suggested a venomous snake that would happily end you.

Laurel knew Nagasaki wouldn’t develop venom until she got older.

But maybe whatever was in the mirror didn’t know that.

From Laurel’s new angle, the situation clarified in the worst possible way.

The glass was gone.

The mirror frame was empty, opening into another room that looked exactly like theirs—same bed, same wallpaper, same stale hotel air—and standing in that matching room was another Laurel.

Mirror Laurel laughed.

Not a friendly laugh. Not a surprised laugh. A laugh that sounded like someone had been waiting.

“Bloody—” Laurel started, then tripped over her own voice and shouted the only name that felt like an emergency exit. “ARI!”

A figure in a black dress appeared between Laurel and the mirror like a blade sliding into a gap.

Ariadne.

Laurel’s stomach dropped with conflicting relief and dread. Ariadne’s stupid “human form” was less comforting than her Crawler body, but it helped anyway, like a uniform helped. Today Ariadne held a scythe—a weapon Laurel had never seen her use before, which was a sentence Laurel hated being able to say.

Ariadne stared at the mirror.

“You’re early,” she said simply.

Mirror Laurel crossed her arms and smirked.

“The day on this planet is ten hours and thirty-three minutes,” she said sweetly. “My birthday’s come and gone.”

Nagasaki gasped.

“Aunt Tess!” she shrieked, pure joy, as if a favorite cartoon villain had shown up at her birthday party.

Before Laurel could react, Mirror Laurel—Tess—reached through the frame and had Nagasaki draped around her shoulders like a scarf.

“Oh,” Laurel said faintly. She watched her ferret-sized ward immediately begin chewing on Tess’s hair with total trust and no survival instincts whatsoever. “Oh, that’s… fine.”

Tess’s eyes flicked to Laurel.

“So that’s the original flavor,” Tess said, voice thoughtful, as if appraising an outfit.

Laurel straightened on reflex. “Um. Hi.”

“High?” Tess repeated, amused.

Laurel shut her eyes. “Hi.”

“Tess,” Ariadne said flatly, “please don’t be a bitch.”

“Fair,” Tess agreed.

Then she stepped forward and—without asking—pressed her fingers to Laurel’s face.

Laurel’s eyelids fluttered open.

The world looked the same.

Except her own eyes reflected light wrong. Like tiny mirrors.

Laurel’s stomach lurched. She raised a hand toward her face, then stopped, afraid to confirm it by touch.

“There,” Tess said lightly. “Now you can tell us apart.”

“I have questions,” Laurel muttered.

“Perfect,” Tess said. “I love questions. They’re so ****.”

Ariadne made a sound through her teeth that might have been a growl if she’d been in her real body.

“Laurel Walker,” Ariadne said, voice drained, “meet Tess Stuart. Shapeshifter, terrorist, ex-girlfriend… and not my blood relative, in case you were wondering.”

Laurel blinked, trying to reroute her brain around terrorist.

Tess waved a hand at her own face, the gesture graceful and irritating.

“I’ve seen you during your big nap,” Tess said. “A-Beam wanted me to get your look right.”

“That is not—” Ariadne blushed so fast it looked painful.

Nagasaki chirped happily from Tess’s shoulders, mouth still full of hair. “I give it ‘til the first challenge.”

Laurel stared. “Are you the host yet?”

Tess’s smile widened. “Not yet.”

Nagasaki chirped happily from Tess’s shoulders, mouth still full of hair. “I give it ‘til the first challenge.”

Laurel turned to Ariadne. “Should I be worried?”

“When wouldn’t you be?” Ariadne sighed. Her shoulders slumped like someone who had accepted that the universe was an exhausting coworker.

Then Ariadne’s eyes narrowed, and her tone shifted into weary temptation.

“Wanna get wasted and watch Harem Hotel: Haunted Castle?” she asked, looking between Laurel and Tess.

“Oh,” Laurel said immediately, latching onto anything normal. “That’s the one with Shar, right? I’m so happy she got a season.”

“It’s a good season,” Tess agreed. “Haunted aesthetics. Trauma. Some surprisingly tasteful lighting.”

Nagasaki’s tendrils wiggled excitedly. “Can we do another one? All they do is practice for their band.”

"Well, two of them were rockstars before the show.” Tess shrugged. “And you kept skipping the sex scenes.”

“They’re gross!” Nagasaki insisted instantly, offended on principle. “Besides, there’s a new season with even more ghosts!”

“Huh.” Laurel nodded seriously, as if considering curriculum. “I think I’d be way more comfortable watching that.”

“Laurel,” Ariadne said, dead tired, “it’s still gonna be Harem Hotel. Nagasaki will get bored in ten minutes either way.”

“No I won’t!” Nagasaki snapped.

She lasted four minutes.

By the time the opening credits were done and Shar had been assaulted by one of the contestants in a dramatic failure to overpower her, Nagasaki had slithered away to find something more stimulating—like a wall, or a piece of lint, or the concept of vengeance.

Laurel stared at the abandoned spot on the floor.

“…Four minutes,” she said.

Ariadne picked up the remote and sighed like a woman watching her own life happen.

“Told you,” she said

Tess laughed, delighted, while Nagasaki vanished down the hallway at maximum ferret-speed.